Last year my friend Kristin got a handmade cookbook for her birthday. I filled it with some of my most favourite vegetarian and vegan recipes. For binding I used a technique called Japanese side stitch.

It had so much fun making it and I'm already thinking of making the next book :)

March 25, 2012

My mum is my inspiration. She is the one that taught me how to crochet and how much fun it is to craft. Without her I wouldn't have discouverd these great hobbies. I consider her one of the most crafty people I ever met and I am very proud to be her daughter. Let me share some of her creations with you!

She crocheted this wonderful dress two years ago:

My mum made this pin cushion many many years ago, isn't it cute? The edging is handmade and she also embroidered it herself:

March 20, 2012

I'm currently attending an SAP training in Walldorf and therefore I'm staying in an hotel in Heidelberg for a couple of days. Today while shopping I came across some interesting and also traditional sweet dessert called "Schneeball" (snowball in English). There's a shop here in the historic district of Heidelberg that sells them in all different kinds of flavours: Nougat, dark chocolate, milk chocolate, marzipan, cinnamon, etc.... This is how their shop window looked like:

And of course I had to buy some snowballs. I decided to go for the traditional snowball with just confectioner's sugar on it and one filled with nougat :) My plan is to save them up until Saturday when I'm visiting my parents.

March 18, 2012

I had such a great weekend!
My mum came over yesterday. First, she helped me to clean my apartment. This may sound strange - my mum is coming over to help me cleaning?! Some background information: I moved into this apartment a couple of months ago and I took over some of the kitchen furniture from the previous tenant. Unfortunately, this kitchen furniture made a lot of trouble since then. I guess my mum couldn't bear my complaints any longer so she offered me some help that I accepted with thanks.
And of course, we didn't spend the whole day cleaning! Around noon we had lunch at one of our favourite restaurants. We both chose crêpe filled with leaf spinach, feta cheese and muchrooms - sooo yummy! Afterwards, we made a quick trip to a market garden where we both bought some terracotta. We then headed downtown for shopping.

After my mum left I quickly made some granola. I'm not really a huge fan of the granola you can buy at the supermarket, I prefer making my own. You can find a great granola recipe in Alica Silverstone's The Kind Diet. It's exactly the one I use (slightly altered). This time I made two baking trays full of granola - what a pity I can't share the great smell with you:

The rest of the evening I spent watching NCIS reruns on TV and crocheting. "Crochet something out of old plastic bags" is one point on my To-Do list. I thought it might be the right time to start working on that one - even though I don't have a goal for that project yet:

Today, I even started working on two other points from my To-Do list: The Easter card for Kristin and the Mother's Day card for my mum. The cards are going to be pop-up, that's all I can say at this point. Unfortunately, you will have to wait a little while for the pictures as Easter is in April and Mother's day in May (yes, in Germany Mother's Day is in May).

I wish you all a great Sunday :)

- Uta -

PS: My blog got a little makeover, what do you think about the new design?

March 13, 2012

My left hand is almost back to normal which means I can finally crochet again! Unfortunately, I got a cold a few days ago and am now sniffing and sneezing like crazy. But luckily, that doesn't keep me away from working on some crafting projects :)

I hocked a few granny squares for my new blanket:

Furthermore, I started to pretty up some Easter decoration. I'm still working on this one so no pictures at this point :)

And here's something for which I need some more inspiration aka your help. I'm an avid tea drinker, one of my colleagues at work as well. So for a few months now I've been collection those paper thingies that are wrapped around tea bags:

I'd like to make something out of it, I already have some vague ideas but nothing really knocked my socks off yet. So who's got an idea?

March 8, 2012

A couple of days ago I blogged about some self-made gift tags, now I want to show you how to make them.

Step 1: Materials
Based on how I made these gift tags you're going to need the following materials*:
- Paper bag handles made of twisted paper
- Brown Paper bag
- Coloured paper

Step 2: Stencils
You will need two hourglass shaped stencils**. They look pretty much the same but they have a different size. Of course, you don't have to stick to the shape I used. Be fancy, be creative and choose something different! Or feel free to simply use my shapes:

Step 3: Draw and Cut
Arrange the bigger stencil on the outside of the brown paper bag and transfer it's shape onto it with a pencil.
Do the same with the small stencil and the coloured paper.

Afterwards, cut out the shapes and raze out all traces of pencil that are left on them.

Step 4: Cut and Staple
Cut the paper bag handles in two. Put both ends of every piece together and secure with a staple.

Now fold the shapes made of the brown paper bag as well as those made of the coloured paper like shown in the picture below:

Secure the shapes with two staples per gift tag:

And you're done :)

- Uta -

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* It's important to be kind to mother earth - recycling paper bags instead of throwing them away means being kind.
** Whenever you make stencils I highly recommend using scratch paper or a piece of newspaper, it's more eco-friendly.

March 3, 2012

I woke up this morning and realized it's already March. Wow! The last two months went by so fast, it's almost scary. Unfortunately, March didn't start that smooth for me...

Last week started with a three-days project management training. I did a lot of seminars on that topic during my studies so there weren't that many new things for me but all in all it was really interesting. And the hotel we stayed in was so comfy, everything was definitely country style inspired.

After the seminar I drove to my parents' place. Wednesday was a lazy day. I spent a lot of time indoors crocheting a couple of granny squares for a new blanket.

On Thursday I went shopping with my parents - well, that was at least our intention. Unfortunately, I slipped when I got out of the car at the car park in front of the shopping center. Result: A huge bruise on my left knee, a bruised left wrist and a not really nice graze on the ball of my left hand. Thus I have to take a break from crocheting and crafting for a little while :/